83: Dickinson Theories

be conspiracy heavy. Is a mystery heavy episode mystery podcast theater. I have been so like puzzled, and I like, I don't even I wanted to come to today's episode like with all the answers about this particular case and like ready to just like explain it all. But the deeper I go into it, the less sense it makes. So under the Silver Lake, I was under the Silver Lake. I was under the Crazy Lake, Crazy days, the days

and lakes. Um so a couple of weeks ago, yeah it was October tenth or yeah, um I don't know. We we we talked about crazy days and nights a lot on this podcast. But the Blind Item webs Blind Item Website, it's super shanky, uh we too to maybe out of few of us love it. Um, I don't know. I feel like it's just been like a staple of mine for a long time. A bunch of things from it came true, it turned out to be true. It became freshly relevant within the last couple of years, particularly around um,

some stories about Harvey Weinstein and now some Epstein stories. Um, so you know it's uh yeah, it's a resource, but unverifiable resource. I hate it so much. I want to bite my tongue and just let you guys have fun. But it has the tone of this website is very difficult for me. It's run by a man. Well, formerly we thought it was run by a man. We took him at his word that his name was empty and entertainment lawyer. How many divorces for he has like this

very kind of cheeky sort of mythology. Or was like I weigh three hundred pounds and I've had four wives, and I eat bacon all day and I live in a basement. Yeah, I live in my parents. I thought that was like mocking what people must think of him, But then there there have been profiles of him that are like and he is Yeah, Like I mean, I I feel like it's not even verified though that he lives in Los Angeles, right, Okay, So that's so, so we have to go we have to go back first

to have him him mythology. So and he has a source um or like a group of sources called known as him with four MS, and they are a group supposedly of four men um three of whom are like celebrities whose names you would recognize, apparently who are friends.

And they started off as commenters on the website and a lot of people thought when they thought it was one person, they thought it was Robert Downey Jr. And this was like a kind of and this is kind of keeps being a thing like people like when when I think there was one him blind item about like an Avenger's star dropping out and he's like, oh good for you, Alreadie J. Like I mean, there's just there's

that continues to be like a um. This person presents himself as somebody who's like a Hollywood insider who like is raised in Los Angeles, has been around for a while for a long time, knows everybody from like not only the current generation, but like knows old Hollywood concept as well passed on through the ages, and I guess

like it does sort of. I mean, if you could think of a star of that age range and profile, I guess like Robert Downey Jr. Is easier to imagine than most people like indulging, and like indulgence people's fantasy that he would be very smart, right, So yeah, I think he's I don't know if anyone asked him directly. They have and he like kind of was coy about it, but I think I don't think he also seems like somebody who would be coy about it, and he was

enjoying the fact that people thought it was him. Um anyway, so that started like in him him came onto the sea dance scene. Um. And then this this past month, uh, and he announced that one of the hymns had committed suicide. And apparently it was the one who was like not famous, but the one who wrote most of the blinds, like the one who was kind of the direct contact and so people were, you know, uh, pouring one out for

him number four and etcetera. And then this guy who goes by John Doe, UM, not John Doe from x UM,

just a John doe with a series of numbers. Who I guess it's just like an anti fanboy started to like do some digging and had a theory that the hymns were all made up and that they were not ever vetted by Anti or Anti willingly and knowingly just like let them tell these bullshit stories online, um and and pretend like basically that it was a group fan fiction effort or no, that there wasn't even a group, Shepherd, it was one guy the whole time who was just

like making like playing the role of this Hollywood insider I knew dirt somewhere else, like, uh oh wait, I have to find this guy. By the way, it bears mentioning. Even though it probably is obvious that there have been a number of things that Crazy Days and Nights has predicted correctly, I would argue there have been more that have been not proven. People say it is a mixture of the true and the untrue in order to like not get sued. Sure, that makes lots of sense. I

don't think so at all. I mean this is it's clearly I read blind item sites a lot, and uh, it's the same with all of them. They will predict things that don't happen, And um, it's actually if we ran a blind item site, I guarantee that we could accurately predict several scandalous things like astrology. It's a mixture of astrology. Yeah, but also there. I mean to me, the purpose of blind item sites and things like that is to like air out gossip that would not be

able to be vetted into a real magazine. And if you like, if you're saying like, oh, but like the real news are report on it anyway, Like look at how the Harvey Weinstein story did play out, because he just paid off every newspaper and magazine and crushed every story about it, like made it so that if it doesn't happen in print, it didn't happen, which is how a lot of abusive things work. There are also ones

that haven't come to light. For instance, Um, a Nickelodeon personality who yeah, who's been talked about for years in blind that's just like an open secret. It isn't open. I mean, that's that's I think the best certain Even Nickelodeon when they fired him, they said it was for something else exactly. They said it was like, oh, we're just having a new creative regime, so you know, until somebody accuses this person my name, which I think some

people have. Uh. That's the thing is, it's like what if they sue you for falsely, you know, claiming something you can't prove. And if you're curious what we're talking about, you can go ahead and search Nickelodeon feet and then you can immediately know exactly what we are talking about.

So some people think that this means that anti themselves are scam and not actually knowledgeable, maybe not even in l A. Well, this guy John Doe, who like kind of went on this Twitter tear and like started to line up the evidence for why him was a lie, uh, then deleted all of his posts and it's like now having a meltdown on Twitter, and he's like, I'm not

being threatened by by crazy days and nights. And there's another thing too, which is like I don't know how far this person specifically went into Q and on, but they were kind of like facing the limit, like they you know, the pedophile ring stuff and the like sexual abuse stuff ring that is true, but then there's also things that aren't true, like people wear red shoes to show that they're a pedophile, and so all these people thought, like Christy Teagan was a pedophile because she wore red

shoes on a show, and that like gets circulated. It's just like, well, I don't know how much that him stuff was getting into like The Q and on, Like, I feel like that was kind of the John Doe gu I was definitely like on that edge, I think, and a lot of his followers were sort of more

of like the Q and on Variety. I would say, um, and I think that I think the reason he started to get a lot of backlash and like delete at everything is just like when you are looking into somebody, like I mean, I think this guy actually did commute suicide. Whoever this was, I think people like figured out who

it was. I mean, I you can find his I continue the link to his obituary, and he lived in Virginia, and he appeared to just he had like one IMDb credit, So he worked in Hollywood for some short amount of time in the nineties and apparently didn't have any involvement

in show business anymore. Um, and I'm not sure if it's like a kind of thing where he like kind of always had this itch and still wanted to like play the role of an insider or like, but it goes back to an old thing, which is like, don't take people on the internet at face value, yeah, or like you know, and like because somebody has an avatar that it's like a picture of that person, and there are needs of like smart talented people who are good

at writing and telling stories, who are unemployed in that realm, men who can pretend to be whoever they want on the internet. Pretty well, my question is this as someone who doesn't know that I know the big A six, you know the foundational information. But so basically, do you guys think that Empty is a singular person with inside knowledge? Do you think that Anty was him? Also? Do you think that him that all of the hymns were one guy?

I think my current theory and I have nothing to back this is just the sense that I get is that Empty is not actually an entertainment lawyer, but he probably has some connections to the industry and is like an aggregator of gossip. That's what I think too. I think that people send blind items and tips to Empty because they've established themselves is like the place where you can get those kinds of blind items and tips run.

So I think people do say like, hey, this person did this, and then he like frames it as a blind item. Um. A lot of them are true. A lot of the old Hollywood ones are. If they were fan fiction, it would be sort of like tediously written and overly specific. Guy is one of those that you're referring to. Is that James Dean the last year, Well, one of the him I think it was a him. One that was the Natalie would one that was like a couple of years. I don't remember what was that one?

Um that was that that she fell off the boat and like there was a chance to rescue her and nobody did, like like this whole like altercation that broke out and everything. It was just like a narrative of what happened to that. We'll never know that one. Yeah, and it's one of these. It's also one of these things that it's like, well, there's no way to prove that now, probably like Christopher walking still a lot. No, Yeah,

that's that's what he was asleep, according to him. But he said that that's a story that he started talking. He started talking, apparently that's that's that's part of the blind item. Yeah, I mean I read him also wrote in sort of a different style from empty they write in this really I hate the hymn. I almost don't ever need the him I ran, They ran a really really good like extended one after uh, Peter Fonda died that claimed that, um, that Peter Fonda had told him

this story. And I do think that there are like stories that guys like that have told everybody that like, now that they're dead, you can publish them. Um. This story was that they like arranged for all the bikes to be stolen during Easy Riders so that they could get the insurance money to finish making Easy Writer, which job the bikes were stolen from Easy Riders, So I

do believe that that's what happened. Um. And then there was like a second part of that story that involved Michelle Phillips going to Howard Hughes and asking for a loan to help her friends finish their movie. And then she said, yes, I also believe Michelle Phillips could get anything out of anything, So um, yeah, I mean interesting that And again you're just like, it feels it could be all made up, who knows, but it does feel specific, and uh, it just feels like a tour ducan of

like bule faking, like it is like insider knowledge. It's just because it's like a commentator on a blog that might not even be real. Like, it's just it's very um, it's a it's a real rabbit hole. Yeah, first let's take a break, and then when we come back, let's take a Nicall this sounds good, Welcome back to Nightcall. We have a nightcall that we wanted to take about horror movies because it's still a spooky season. Spooky season

has just started. It's always spooky season now, she said, disdainfully. We have always been here. Hey, I am a fan of the show, and I posted a question in the Night Colors group that I wanted to ask you, folks, um, do you have any recommendations for easing into horror movies. My background is I was raised in a pretty restrictive religious environment where we were told that if we watched movies with any kind of demonic or the ratistic element in them, then we had a good chance of getting

attacked by demons. And so in that environment, I really didn't get any exposure to horror movies beyond like the Birds. Um. Later on, I started watching some zombie movies when I kind of got out of that religious environment. But I'm still really scared of horror, and I still kind of have this visceral like fear reaction where I can't bring

myself to even look at the screen. So, um, I've got really good recommendations, but um, it was suggested to call into the show to also get everybody's take on, um, maybe what movies I could start with to start to get more comfortable with seeing horror on screen. So I would love to hear anything you might recommend, and I will add it to my homework. Thank you, Thank you so much for the call. Um do you guys? I

mean I'm the bed. I'm a bad personally. I have one idea, but I want to hear yours because I'm such the wrong person to answer this question. I like gentle horror, the gentle, the gentle horror. I've been watching a lot of like thirties and forties horror, which I think is a good place to start. Squeamish. Yeah, like universal monster movie. Universal monster movies are all really good. It's like Dracula. I'm just going to name a bunch

of monsters. I was going to suggest the Francis for Coppola Dracula because it's just more of like a gothic spook fest, but it's just like, yeah, it's it's super goth. It's like it's scary, but it's more just like gushing rivers of blood type scary. Like it's not like, but if rivers of blood or not your thing? Are they not? Who's who's whose thing? Isn't rivers of blood nude to horror? Well, but I just don't think that that's scary in the same way that like The Exorcist is scary in the

facebook she has for exposure therapy. And I actually was like, maybe you could just jump in with the Exorcist and then you know, everything else would be easy. But I said Poltergeist and Rosemary's Baby because they both have so much so much plot. Like poulter Geist, for instance, is great because it's just funny at parts and like and it's it's making fun of yuppies. The yuppies are like the real bad people when you kind of think about it, so then it's like, if you're scared of yuppies, you

get to think about that. Um. But I thought Poulter Guys was like a good entree. Yeah, pulter Geist is a good pick, and Rosemary's Baby I just love because it's funny. But I also obviously it's a tricky one

to recommend. Yeah, the demonic thing. It's like Rosemary's Baby and Exorcist or two, like first just perfect movies outside of genre, and then but they also are very much like like if you have grown up like actually believing in demons of Satan and stuff like that, then like that might not be the best, but in a way, in a way to jump into the deep end. I also said It Follows because It Follows has such a great texture, and I think like something about It Follows

is very seductive. I'm trying to think of movies that like wouldn't give you nightmares, but then but you're watching horror. She's trying to get over the fear. I think that the monster stuff is. I think vampire movies are like the least scary monster, like hot um Business a sexy scary. I thought the scariest movie to recommend would be pet Cemetery. For some reason, why are we just picking the scariest. I think I didn't recommend pet Semetary because in my

mind I was like, not pet cemetery. Not all of tests recommendations it should be it should be stated, are like the baptism by fire. Yeah you want to styles um, Yeah, I mean I think like a good old like goold fashion ghost story, even something like I don't know, like like even a Becca or something like that. It's just like a spooky tale about a spooky house, like you know, it's very gentle, kind of horrid. Do you want I

guess that's the question. Well, she likes zombies. She did like zombies, but she's you know, it was like hard. But she should watch Night of the Living Dad, if she hasn't yet. I think she's wanting to expand, to broaden her horizons after the zombies. Zombies do feel a little bit of like a zombies don't really get me going in the way a lot of things. It feels

like a little bit of there's a big zombie boom. Yeah, but whoa what about like an anthology like what like I mean, like from the crypt Tales from the Dark Side, something like that. I mean, you could also do something where you if you haven't. I don't know if Twilight Zone would have been considered demonic, but like something like Twilight Zone is a great suggestion that the TV show the movie is genuinely terrifying. Well, the movie for many reasons.

It's cursed and it's arry and yeah, and I still watch it sometimes really feel so off brand, and that's part of what makes it so creepy. Why they do it and they kill people. Um, I think it's interesting none of us have suggested like slasher movies. Well, I was about to say, like, actually what I would do. And I was always really afraid of especially effects heavy horror movies. So if that's your particular poison, super afraid of Freddy way too afraid to ever see any of

those movies. So then like a few years ago, I did them all, and I totally recommend that because it's also just like a fun run. The Freddie movies are fun just because they're like goofy, Well the first one, the first one is genuinely scary, the second one is really homo erotic, the third fourth, like then they get weird and star Patricia Arquette as like a haunted child. Um, and then they get self aware and then they turned into New Nightmare, which is like an amazing meta horror movie.

About the l a earthquake and the effect being in the Freddy Serious has had on all the actors who play the characters. It's like a dry run for Scream. It's great. Yeah, and we'll also recommend Scream. Oh, Scream is great. Well, there's something supernatural about the Nightmares movies, which is, like I think puts it in more of a fun realm than just like like just Halloween or just like any kind of wouldn't I would not, I

actually would like not. I get more bad vibes. And I also I grew up religiously as well, like and I get more bad vibes from like teenage girls getting slashed than anything having to do with Satan or demons or anything like that. Like that stuff feels actually kind of doesn't get slashed. She saves everyone else. Yeah, but a lot of other people do. I love Halloween because they're like cool girls who like smoke pot in their car, and then they also have to deal with this guy

who's talking them. And then the Craft may be good if you haven't seen The Crab, because it deals kind of head on with like, you know, adolescent girls who are harnessing their powers rebelling craft is a good Yeah, what are If you have any starter horror recommendations, horror movie starter pack, please call in and let us know at to four oh four six night give us a Nightcall with your favorite night watches. You can also give us an email at Night Call Podcast at gmail dot com.

So when we come back, we are going to welcome our guest this week onto the show. Welcome back to Nightcall. We are now joined by our guest and friend of the show, Elana Smith. She is the creator of Dickinson, which is now availble to watch on Apple TV plus. Um hey, hey, ter New York. So this is like we're back to Nightcall, like o G Nightcall where we're

talking to the other coast. Yeah, and this is this is really special for me because I've been doing a lot of press and interviews for Dickinson, but this is the only press where the people that I'm talking to have known me since before I started working on Dad and well, they're the whole time. I wanted to look up just for reference because you were one of our first guests on Girls and Hoodies back in the day. Um, you came on around the tween Hobo days and I

had to look up. I looked it up. I googled it. And the way I can tell this is a long ass time ago is there's a picture of Justin Bieber and he's just got like the very beginning of the whispy mustache, which would become the nightmare that we know today. So were it really was back, I know, and tweet Hobo was defined tween Hobo was defined by her love of Bieber. Yeah, nothing could be more outdated now. So life, life on the rails, moves fast. You got to keep up.

You gotta keep up with the times. I thought you were going to say that we're the only press you've done that's going to ask you for your Epstein theories. I mean that means we're achieving an even greater dream of mine than having a TV show, which is talking about Epstein on a podcast. So well, we want to

talk a little bit about Dickinson. And yes, like we've all known you since before you started working on the show proper, but like I feel like you've been working on this in some fashion or another for as long as I've known you. So it's like I always tell people, like, it's so cool to actually see my friend's show she's been talking about forever, like realized and like seeing billboards for it on Sunset and stuff. It's wild. Um, but yeah,

you're but you're obsessed with Emily Dickinson, you know. And I really haven't stopped being obsessed with her. It's it's it's actually crazy that that the interest continues. You haven't gotten burned out from just I can't believe that I haven't.

But I think it's sort of like it started with Emily Dickinson and her poems, and then as well, I became fascinated with her biography and you know, her life story, and then I have spent so long working on it that the interest has kind of bled out from there into just the eighteen fifties and sixties in general, and um, and you know the literary culture and context that surrounded her. Uh.

And there's just so much meat there. There's so much to chew on and so many ways to kind of use that time in American history as a filter for looking at where we are today. And and that's what's like really kept me going and even to the point where I mean, this is so crazy, because as you guys know, I also have eighteen month old twins and um, between my babies and this show, I have no free time. And yet somehow I just signed up for a four week long course on the Civil War that I'm going

to be taking at a bar in Brooklyn. Uh And I forced one of my other writers to take it with me. And like, I mean, I'm just like I can't stop with with the Civil Wards. It's really all engaging. So I love that you have made like the ultimate Lisa Simpson dream show. Yes for anyone who did, only Lisa would sign up for a civil work or also just things like you know, being like my audience is people who will be excited about casting John mulaney as

Henry David Threw. I mean, I feel like it's it's like, you know that we're we're canceling thorow, But that feels like literally that that was trending on Twitter a month ago that somebody's tweet about how Throw was mom did his laundry went viral and I'm just like, come on, yeah, I probably thought it comes up every every like several years. That becomes like a new fun fact. It's like you've known about this, like yeah, well, well we've dramatized it.

Featuring the comic gifts of John Mulaney. So yeah, I mean, I I was always a huge fan of the Transcendentalists, uh in general, all that spiritualism stuff. Were you guys transcendental heads? No, Test just gave a look that was like I was so into like Emerson, I wasn't. I wasn't. And as to the Romantics, there's some really good Moby Dick Molly's Forever. No. I mean, I mean, it's the

thing is that it is. It is really good, and I'm just I look back at I read Moby Dick when I was like in my twenties living in Brooklyn, and I just remember reading it on the subway a lot, and it really was an absolutely, you know, existentially transcendent experience. But I just feel like I am. I feel like I don't read anymore. And I don't know. Although now I'm actually going on a trip to Russia, which is topic for another podcast. But I'm going to Russia and

I'm thinking maybe I have to read Warren Peace. Are you going to promote the show or just for fun? Are you going to investigate an investigate? Yes, I gotta see what's I gotta just ask a few questions poke around man watch out. You should definitely read Warren Peace all the Russian novels. Also, rule have you read Anna Karenina? I have not read. That's my monster, like Transcendental. It took a year to read, like like completely, like I

like absorbed myself into it. That book is amazing. I keep asking people which one I should read Anna Karenina or Warren Peace, and like do Anna Karna have adamant opinions about it? We nightcall says do Anna Karna a total So it's so horny you'll love it. It's very tortured. I haven't read Warren Peace, though, so I can't really honestly say one is better than the other. But that's that is on my short list of things to get to.

As they say, yeah, yeah, I mean so far as I can tell, as far as I can tell from the like you know, um Spark notes that I've been googling about Warren Peace. It illuminates the way in which we're all just specks of dust on the grand canvas of history. I kind of feel like I could get into that. And Karina has got some real class politic in it too, which you will also dig Um, it's I can only picture Kara nightly now when I think about it. Yeah, did you see the movie? No, I

must seen the poster. Movie is pretty good. Guys, it's not isn't it like Guy did Atonement? If you like that sort of thing, and sometimes I do. I like to fantasize about places where it's very cold because of it. Well, obviously, obviously I wouldn't have made Dickinson if I didn't want to get into that period game. I definitely have you

Flecked with Doctor Jivago. You should watch that that and also yeah, I have definitely I feel like that's very much kind of the visual tone of Dickinson, which has the pilots directed by David Gordon Green, who does an amazing job. Um, but yeah, make it's like so romantic and sweeping and beautiful and visually beautiful. Your costumes have gotten like some good pre press like pre airing buzz.

The costumes. I mean, all I can think of is like that beautiful red dress that Haley's time fels wearing. And the trailer, I'm like, day, do you think Dickinson Core Dickinson Core is going to catch on? I absolutely do. In fact, I think it's already started. I don't know if you guys have noticed the amount of puffed sleeves.

And it's really lucky for me, not only because it is so on brand for Dickinson, but also that is a silhouette that I look good in and you know, as an older woman, I just want to commit to a silhouette that works for me as an older woman. What the prairie look. I didn't some like can't deep excavation of like why this is the thing right now? And I think it's like actually quite subversive, like the

whole bat siva. Oh I can't, I can't subversive. Oh, I mean I feel like it's it's like it's like kind of adjacent to the Handmaid's Tale type thing, Like it's like I'm going to cover my body and but also like look like a Christmas present at the same time. The idea I I will never accept that like an entirely cover your body like binding and difficult to wear garment is transgressive, but that's what they're bindre extremely very comfortable.

It's like if if something covers your whole body, you want to like tear a hole in it, only only if there's a fire going on, and you live in southern California, just get dangerous. I just get itchy. If you put me in like a prairie dress, I would get So. I have a prairie dress. It's made of rayon. It's like very soft and nice. That chevy dresses seem like they collect us. There's like lots of nooks and cranny. I just hate the look. I think only looks good

on really tall, really skinny people that specific. Even then they could do better. I think I think it's just not my well, I'll tell you guys. Also another style style tip from the world of Dickinson. So, so you know, it was very important to us that we got all the details right about the period, at least at least that we knew what the truth was before we decided if we had to to to alter it. But most of the time we really did stick to the truth.

But one of the places where it was really difficult was with um women's hair, because women's hair in the eighteen fifties was just so hideous and the men's hair is fabulous. Like if you look at these photographs of Austin Dickinson and his Amor's College classmates from the eighteen forties and fifties. They all have the most luscious, like

hipster hair that just looks perfect, you know. So so every guy we cast, we had to tell them as soon as we cast them not to cut their hair because everyone has like this long, cool, so floppy like shock of hair. Yeah. And um. But but the men's looks in general, I think we're like just really attractive. And almost every man that got in the costume and was on set at one point would be like, why don't I dress like this? You know, like a top hat. A top hat makes you a foot taller and it

makes you look so elegant. And now, okay, but as I'm saying this, I want to underline something, which is that it's very important to me that this never go anywhere near steampunk. All right, this is this is strictly like dandy dandy Yankee. Yeah, this is Yankee doodle dandy like in the chic. It's just can we talk about Yankee doodle dandy? Because I just learned about that. That Macaroni was like, do you know about this? This is why you said that. I think I've heard this because

of my extensive research of what is it? Macaroni was like a slang term for men who were like Foppish and wore a lot of like fine silks. Macaroni is called the macaroni. The idea was that they thought fancy Italian clothes, like an Italian, but it was like a Yankee, like a term Yankees used deric Yankee. Okay, well, every guy on Dickinson, every guy on Dickinson is a macaroni. Yeah, yankee doodle When they say put a feather in his hat and called it macaroni, can we can we bring

back macaroni? Is it? Is it? Kind of racist? You can't racist against Italian can't be racist against Italians? What are you talking about? That is the rule. You can do an Italian voice or a French voice. I disagree with this. My husband is Italian. Yeah, but the Italians are fine. They what do you object to a nice Yeah? Right, Oh guys, I'm scandalized. His father's name was Dondo, his brother's name's Lorenzo. We're just saying you can make fun of the Italians and the Irish and the French. The

European groups are fine to all the New York Europeans. Yeah, yeah, I think it's okay to just make funny Yorkers. Sure, yes, that's all you can. Okay, so you can do any kind of gangs of New York style. Are there any other historical figures that you are thinking about bringing in?

I know, maybe you don't want to spoil, but well, almost everybody, almost everybody in the show is based on an actual historical figure, meaning like a real person who was around in and around the town of Amherst, or friends with the Dickinson's or cross paths with them in

some way. But then we have in a sort of slightly different category, we have like what I call like our celebrity cameos, which in season one is thorough, and then Louisa may Alcott, who's played by Sasha Mammitt, and um, it's very fun picking like which nine century people you most want to meet and and and them being maybe slightly random. Um, but I think I mean, obviously, for me, Louisa may Alcott is I mean, we obviously are in a little Women moment, and um, you know little Women.

I feel like the creation of Dickinson for this show owes as much to you know, Louisa Alcott and Joe March as it does to Emily Dickinson, because that's what I read, and that's what like taught me how to tell a story in chapters about irrepressible young girl who gets into scrapes and it's always Um. I heard that I was talking to someone about this and they were saying that girls today aren't reading Little Women anymore, or they aren't reading Anne of green Gables and like, that's

it's not true. I mean, it's weird because I at the same time, I feel like, like they did that New Ann of green Gables show a couple of years ago, Little Women will get a Little women bump, yeah, and then new Little Women, and like it feels like people are like yes Joe, Like you know, like she's like this stock character that everybody knows and loves. But I can't tell if that's just people that are kind of our generation or if that's actually people who are younger. Um. Well,

I'd like to request um Edgar Allan Poe. He wrote, Well, Molly, I'm not allowed to speak to anything, but you may get your wish. I'll tell moll Afair. He wrote My Favorite Takedowns of the Transcendentalist. He wrote the bitchiest things about the Transcendentalists. I know, I know a lot of po facts. Um, he had an affair with his cousin who was fourteen. Uh, he drank himself to death? Wait did he actually Wasn't the cousin thing kind of exaggerated

or something? Or I feel like I think this recently I was listening to sometimes podcast. Yeah. Um, I definitely felt like David Gordon Green had like high Gothic in him and this showed. But Southern Gothic, Southern Gothic is different from New England. Right, we're strict about ours here. Come on, Well, that's actually it's really interesting in the in the process of making this show. One one thing that I've learned is that everybody's kind of archetypal um past.

Like if you think about American history, right, the place that you go in your mind is so determined by where you grew up. So people who grew up in California think about, you know, the Gold Rush and the Old West and you know, like maybe like the War with Mexico, although no that that might be Texas, but um, but you know, and then Mexico we are we are in Mexico, right, And then and then one of my writers and who was an EP on Season one, Darlene Hunt,

who grew up in Kentucky. Like when I tell her, you know, okay, thinking period, She's only thinking in the Old South, you know. And me, I'm from the Hudson Valley, New York, and so I'm thinking about like Sleepy Hollow or like I guess you know certain Native American tribes that were around where I was, And um, yeah, I don't know. It's just it's just so funny because the

only time you learn about history is in elementary school. Anyway, it was just reading I read about Sleepy Hollow last night too, uh, because I watched the movie Pumpkinhead, which is the head of really Mislead Nice. Um he does not have a pumpkin head. But um, there was the whole thing about the Headless Horseman. I just was reading about where the heless Horseman came from and that it was the ghost of a Hessian soldier from the Revolutionary War,

who were the German soldiers who aided the British. It was supposedly a guy, a Hessian soldier who had had his head blown off by a cannonball and haunted sleepy hollow um. Speaking of hauntings. M m Elena, you've been thinking of dead people, dead people. Wait, Molly, as you make this segue, I'm gonna say my one of my favorite Emily Dickinson quotes that I've been asked recently what are what are some of my favorites? So this one's

on the tip of my of my head. Uh So, she wrote in a letter once to Thomas Higginson, she said nature is a haunted house, an art house that tries to be haunted. So to turn from the world of fiction to the world the the haunted Gothic uh, you know, world of reality. The news report came out today saying that Jeffrey Epstein's brother had an investigation into his brother's death in jail, supposedly by suicide, and his

independent investigation determined that it was probably a murder. I'm shocked, no way, I know, it's like breaking something really obvious. Should we be a little suss about like the fact that it's his brother. I mean, what's his brother's what's his brother's deal? I'm something, I'm okay, three brothers. His brother's name is Mark Epstein. He also is in real

estate and it's in New York. And Um, he is the one who collected Jeffrey's body from the um from the medical examiner and and had him, you know, allegedly buried in a in a like along with his parents

in Florida. I think, and he may be the beneficiary of the incredibly suspicious trust that was created two days before Jeffrey Epstein died, which is called my favorite fact, is called the nineteen fifty three trust because that is the year that Epstein was born and you cannot think of a more boomer year to be so he created like the trust for all boomers. Um. But this is my question. So so the brother and also Epstein's lawyers, we're the ones who were like, we're going to conduct

our own investigation into this whole thing. Um, Like, we're not going to accept the facts that have been presented. We're going to dig deeper. And I'm I am curious and confused what they hope to find. These aren't necessarily the parties that you would think of to go And you know, what do what do they gain from proving that somebody killed him? Right? Um? What do you make of the idea that Epstein and jis Laine were both Massad agents who were running a blackmail scheme on the

rich and powerful um internationally. Well, I mean every time that I've ended up on a website that's saying that I've kind of thought to myself, Oh, have I fallen down an incredibly anti Semitic rabbit hole. It's not anti Semitic to be anti Zionist. That's true. That's true. Um, that's um the difficult distinction that is hard to explain, especially on the Internet, a place where distinctions fall away,

distinctions in darkness. No, I mean, you know, I mean, I think one of the questions I have about Epsten as a sort of black male scheme in and of himself, like whether you know, for Massad or for the CIA, is that it doesn't really quite make sense that if you were if your job was to like trap other powerful men into having sex with minors, that you would do it so much yourself. Well, that's the part that doesn't make sense. But it's also like none of it

makes sense, you know. But the idea that he like kept getting in trouble and like getting away with it speaks to me to the idea that he was being protected in some way I guess I don't find the Massad theory like very convincing, just because it does try to like turn this into a very big, like smart evil plot, like this masterminded thing, when really it feels just like one man's like a sex addict and a pedophile. I think that's what they think, But like I don't,

I don't. I mean, you can still harness that energy. You can still harness that energy to become song. Here's the universal theory is that Um j Lane's dad. We're calling her jis Lane Um, but we call her Jane because the pedophile awful person her dad was in Mossad and helped found the state of Israel, so that is like true. And then she supposedly was also in it, started dating Jeffrey Epstein and brought him into it um, and that's how he got access to the fancy people.

Somebody on a totally way too far down the rabbit hole site that I went to found all these scraped stories also from British tabloids that had been scraped recently that we're like just about eptein the Society Man, and it found that like scraped by who scraped by the British press because the Royals, the Royals made them do it. Um. Uh, So there are things that say, like they call him

a realtor. Basically very early on he's like a real estate type who so the ideas that he was getting funded by the State of Israel to like establish himself as like a rich real estate guy in New York and then obtained blackmail on a number of prominent American politicians. But how did so did gis Lane start dating him before he got funded to become a real estate nobody? He was just so she dated him before he was big. Yeah.

And also he got you know, he had a series of weird talented Mr Ripley things where he got this job at bear Sterns no experience here, and that was after the teaching hired to be a professor for no real like. I think he was a charismatic grifter and then he met another charismatic grifter and they formed a super super super group of grifters. Um. But that is the theory I have heard. Uh. I read a really long part that goes back to Iran contra Um. Molly,

we've been we've been on the same website. Um. But but but here's my question. So where is all this blackmail material then, and whose hands is it in? And what about the fact that when the FBI rated his town house, which I also took a little visit to the other day, just a regular going on this side, doesn't nothing? You post a photo though it has his initials engraved in the door frame. Oh well yeah, I mean when they raided his town house, what about all

those video tapes and everything that they found. Like, this is what's driving me crazy about this story is that you never get to ask the next question. It's like, okay, so wait what Like okay, so he hung himself with bedsheets in the in the shoe that no one has died in ever, or at least for the last twenty years, like what you know? Like where? I think that also just was like they think we're stupid. That's what that

rights about, too. And I think a lot of this is like it is like reliving the JFK assassination thing, because it is like, oh, it doesn't even feel like they think we're stupid. It's like you can like say whatever you want, but there's nothing you can do about.

It's more like they have all the power. They use their power apparently to enable people to have pedophile rings for the purpose of black mail, which just says that and also just that so many people said, yes, that's the crazy part to me that like I get, okay, this is i'll be phrase, I'll be phrase my objection to the to the blackmail scheme thing, at least the massad blackmail scheme thing, which is just that like I like, why why does pedophilia have to have a purpose, Like

can't people just be sickos on their own? Like that are people who are sickos on their own? But I think this is a different thing. And I think this was a guy who was saying, as part of the world of privilege, you get to do things that other aren't allowed to do. That's like how Hollywood is fun. But that's not a blackmail. That's just like, hey, like you've you've reached the status where you like, you know, lots of people just do that and they don't then

like record it and likes blackmail somebody. But that's what I think this specifically was just being like, hey, like Bill Gates or some other incredibly rich and powerful person, you're here among friends. We're all rich and powerful here on the sex Island. We can do whatever we want because we're above the law. Because that's true for really

rich people, they are above the law. But then I just I guess I don't see why he would participate then instead of just being a pimp, like he didn't participate, I think. But I think he's a pedo. I mean, obviously, but I don't know that anyone would have participated in anything in that kind of scenario unless he might do it by participating himself. That's the only reason why anyone else did. Totally. It's like the cop who has to do drugs, they're not a dealer, um, but I mean,

but he too, so it'saw like he's a cop. I had to I had like, I don't know. Well, okay, so his prior this private investigation, Lena, we're running out of time, Okay, we're running out of time in this segments to solve the case, right, we can't get That's

what I'm saying. There's just more questions. I mean, I have a question about when alex Acosta said that he was told to lay off Jeffrey Epstein because he quote unquote belonged to intelligence, Like what does that mean telling him the c I A or massador working together, we'll

solve it next time when you come back on. I mean, I'm grateful to his brother just for having this investigation done so that he'd be back in the news, because it does seem like the story is like falling more and more out of the news and people and they're counting on people to forget it, and I think they are, but well, this is what I this is. Yeah, I think that there's actually a lot more stuff that will

get it back in the news. Yeah. And there was a crazy day the night's flying the other day about somebody else who's going to get out in in all this, So I don't know, but but it feels to me like this massive organizational project that has to happen, like which I think we have to do, and I've already told about it. This is what should be for. Yeah, you should bring if not us, who I mean, we have to stand up, we have to take responsibility. We have to say we will get to the bottom of this,

we will join hands, we will not let this be forgotten. Yeah, I well, not in our names. Well, I look forward to your investigation team being formed in between seasons one and two off So I also, if you want to make people talk to you more about this, I'm sure we all do. We want to talk to strangers about this more. Um. Jack Am is now selling some merch that is a sweatshirt that says Epstein Theories, which is

one of their couches. Okay, I feel free to buy an Epstein Theories sweatshirt and support the Epstein and on. I think that I think that you know, much like Emily Dickinson herself, when people get interested in Jeffrey Epstein, you know, they just find themselves sucked into a mystery that will last for centuries. Don't don't underestimate teenage girls and people who used to be them. Okay, then exactly, Amen, Elena, thank you so much, Molly, thank you, Emily, and Test.

Everybody checks out fun to talk to you guys. Everybody check out Dickinson on Apple check. You can find it right now on your phone, on your TV, on even on your web browser. It's very easy to find. Just you know, just find it and just watch it. Okay. It will radicalize the next generation into getting into more scrapes and toms. That's what that's what we're hoping than Bye, thank you for listening Tonight Call this week, and thank you so much to Elena for coming on and chatting

with us. Uh that does it for us this week. You can follow us on social media on Twitter at Nightcall Pod, Instagram, at Nightcall podcast, and Facebook at Nightcall Podcast. You can subscribe to us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and you can support us on Patreon. We are at patreon dot com slash Nightcall and you can subscribe it a number of different levels for all sorts of extra bonus episodes, newsletters and fun stuff and pin merch mixes. Letters. So we will be in So

we'll be back next week. Thanks so much for listening. By Yeah. Nightcall is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.